According to the findings of the study published in “The Journal of Sexual Medicine,” men who took Viagra, Cialis, Levitra and other drugs in the same class for erectile dysfunction experienced lower rates of major adverse cardiovascular events, such as heart failure and death from heart disease, compared with other men with erectile dysfunction not using these drugs.
Specifically, research has seen that men who took these drugs had a 39% lower rate of death from heart disease, 22% from unstable angina, 17% from heart failure, 15% from in the need for revascularization procedures such as angioplasty, stenting, and bypass surgery, and 25% of deaths from any cause.
The overall benefit in reducing cardiac events was seen in men who also had risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including diabetes.
Due to the retrospective nature of the study, the research team cannot determine the cause of this benefit, only that there was an association between exposure to PDE 5 inhibitors and lower rates of cardiovascular events.
In any case, the researchers raise some hypotheses for such an effect. For example, they write there are works that suggest an improvement in endothelial function, in the reduction of the end-diastolic pressure of the left ventricle during ischemia, which suggests an improvement in the diastolic function of the heart, or a decrease in the size of the myocardial infarction. , arterial stiffness, reduction in systolic velocity and inflammation
Now, they write, the results raise the possibility that PDE5 inhibitors may have cardioprotective properties.
